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ismail haniyeh
ICC Will Withdraw War Crimes Charges If Sinwar Confirmed Dead. Also: Netanyahu Still Alive
"The ICC's credibility is hanging by a thread," warned one former United Nations official in response to the court's delay in deciding whether to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
Oct 17, 2024
The office of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said Thursday that it is "aware of the reports" that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was assassinated by Israeli forces in Gaza, adding that it would withdraw its request for an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the October 7, 2023 attack and imprisonment of hostages if Sinwar's death is confirmed.
"In line with standard practice, the office will take relevant action if sufficient information is received confirming his death," Khan's division said of Sinwar, according to The Associated Press.
Israeli authorities said DNA, fingerprints, and dental records confirm Sinwar's death.
The announcement left some international critics frustrated at the ICC's delay in issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than a year after Israel began its bombardment of Gaza.
In May, Khan announced that he had formally applied for warrants to arrest Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their role "in the crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."
Khan also said he was seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders: Sinwar, former political leader Ismail Haniyeh, and al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes including extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, torture, and other violations of international law.
Haniyeh was assassinated in late July by Israeli operatives in Tehran, Iran. Israel claims to have also killed Al-Masri, although this has not been confirmed.
In a Thursday evening address, Netanyahu asserted that "Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the beginning of the day after Hamas."
"This is an opportunity for you, the residents of Gaza, to finally break free from its tyranny," he added in an appeal to Palestinians in the embattled strip—more than 150,000 of whom have been killed or wounded in a war for which Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu's government allowed Hamas—which Israel propped up for years in a bid to counterbalance the power of the Palestinian National Authority—to receive billions of dollars in cash payments via Qatar.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement on Sinwar's reported assassination that "this is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world."
Biden claimed U.S. involvement in efforts to find and kill Sinwar.
"Shortly after the October 7 massacres, I directed special operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza," the president said. "With our intelligence help, the [Israel Defense Forces] relentlessly pursued Hamas' leaders, flushing them out of their hiding places and forcing them onto the run."
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said during a Thursday press conference that "any terrorist who kills Americans, threatens the American people, or threatens our troops or our interests, know this: We will always bring you to justice."
"Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated," Harris added. "Today, there is clear progress toward that goal. Hamas is decimated and its leadership is eliminated."
With the ICC accused of moving too slowly in pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, Khan has urged the court to "urgently render its decisions" on his May applications.
Khan had some reason to tread carefully, as Israel waged a nearly decadelong intimidation campaign against former ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in response to her pursuit of justice for Israeli war criminals.
U.S. lawmakers have also threatened to sanction ICC officials who seek to hold Israeli leaders accountable for violations of international law, and in June dozens of House Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in passing H.R. 8282, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would sanction ICC personnel involved in efforts to bring Israeli leaders to justice.
In an opinion piece published earlier this week by Al Jazeera, former United Nations official Moncef Khane wrote that "the ICC's credibility is hanging by a thread."
"It took Khan no less than seven months to recommend to the court's pre-trial chamber the issuance of warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant, notwithstanding a rather formidable amount of evidence of their personal responsibility in the war crimes perpetrated in Gaza," he noted.
"Now that he has done his duty, it is for the three sitting judges of the pre-trial chamber to decide whether to issue the warrants or not," Khane added. "The glaring and extraordinary amount of evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crime of aggression is such that were they to abscond from their responsibility, they would ring the death knell of the ICC."
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US Congressmen Say 'No War With Iran!'
"Israel's dramatic escalation is completely compatible with its past efforts to drag the U.S. into another war," one expert said of the Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader in Iran.
Aug 04, 2024
Amid mounting fears of a regional war in the Middle East, a pair of Democratic congressmen joined the growing chorus warning against the U.S. engaging in an armed conflict with Iran.
In response to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introducing a resolution to authorize the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on social media Saturday that "the U.S. must not be dragged into a war with Iran."
"The Iraq War was the biggest American blunder of the 21st century," Khanna added. "Every candidate running this cycle must be clear on where they stand on this."
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said early Sunday: "I agree with Ro Khanna. No war with Iran! Let's all get on record with this."
Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, urged Khanna to introduce a related war powers resolution, arguing that "we really could use a clear vehicle like this to increase the pressure for no U.S. military intervention in a disastrous war with Iran."
"We're a miscalculation or a miscue away from an event that could draw the U.S. and Iran into a direct military conflict."
Since Hamas, the Palestinian political and militant group that has controlled the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades, led the October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli forces—backed by diplomatic and weapons support from U.S. President Joe Biden and Congress—have killed at least 39,583 people in the coastal enclave and injured another 91,398, according to local officials.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over Gaza—has elevated fears of a regional war this week with an airstrike targeting Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Lebanon and the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at his residence in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
By killing Haniyeh, "Netanyahu has systematically sabotaged cease-fire talks because ending the war will likely end his political career," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Wednesday.
"Here we go again. Scrambling to prevent total war by pressing Iran not to retaliate," Parsi said Sunday, pointing to the final paragraph of a New York Times opinion piece he wrote in April about a conflict that began with an attack on Iran's diplomatic compound in Syria. "Had Biden forced a Gaza cease-fire, we wouldn't perpetually be on the precipice of war."
Parsi had argued earlier this year that "Mr. Biden has pursued policies that have pushed the Middle East to the precipice of war. His tactical successes in avoiding the worst outcomes of his policies should not be belittled. But they can never make up for his government's broader failure to pursue a strategy that brings real security to America and real peace to the Middle East."
Parsi also highlighted a social media thread from Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who said Sunday that "similar de-escalation/crisis management efforts that helped to defuse the Israel-Iran confrontation in April... are in motion again—only this time, the situation is far more complex and dangerous."
"Stumbling from one escalatory cycle to another and relying heavily on luck to avert a full-blown regional war is unsustainable and irresponsible," she warned. "We're a miscalculation or a miscue away from an event that could draw the U.S. and Iran into a direct military conflict."
"Hoping that cooler heads will prevail time and time again is not a strategy. The diplomatic off-ramps to break the cycle are clear and begin with securing a cease-fire agreement and hostage release in Gaza," she continued. "As we saw during the humanitarian pause in late 2023, every Iranian proxy and aligned group stood down during this period. In addition to ending the bloodshed and massive suffering, a cease-fire would calm the situation in the region, providing time and space for negotiations, large-scale aid, and the rebuilding of Gaza."
Haniyeh's assassination—the details of which are being disputed—has Israel preparing for potential retaliation from Iran and its proxies. Netanyahu on Sunday told a Cabinet meeting that Israel is already in a "multifront war" with both.
According to The Associated Press, which reported on the prime minister's remarks:
Netanyahu said Israel was ready for any scenario. Jordan's foreign minister was making a rare trip to Iran as part of diplomatic efforts—"We want the escalation to end," Ayman Safadi said—while the Pentagon has moved significant assets to the region.
"We are doing everything possible to make sure that this situation does not boil over," White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told ABC.
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that it was deploying additional military resources to the Middle East, despite reported tension between Biden and Netanyahu, who was in Washington, D.C. last month to address Congress and meet with key U.S. leaders.
Citing an unnamed Biden administration official, Haaretz reported Saturday that the most recent conversations between Biden and Netanyahu, including one at the White House, "were difficult and tense."
As the Israeli newspaper detailed:
"Biden realized that Netanyahu was lying to him about the hostages," the official told Haaretz. "He's not saying it publicly yet, but in the meeting between them, he specifically told him, 'Stop bullshitting me.'"
The official said that the U.S. is preparing to help Israel in the face of Iran and Hezbollah's response to the assassinations that Israel carried out last week in Beirut and Tehran—despite the tension between the two leaders—but made it clear that there would be no American backing for moves that would further expand the scope of the conflict.
"Netanyahu is trying to prolong the war instead of focusing on how to get to a hostage deal," the official said. "It's making it harder for us to continue supporting Israel over time."
Responding to the reporting on social media, Parsi said: "In a shocking turn of events, an Israeli prime minister who has lied to every American president since Bill Clinton, turns around and ** drum roll ** lies to Biden! It took Biden 10 months to 'realize' he was being lied to. TEN MONTHS!!!"
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Netanyhu Assassination Spree Could Set Middle East on Fire
What Netanyahu can be sure he has not done is weaken Hamas.
Aug 01, 2024
In killing Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Tehran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent the clearest message yet to Iran and the resistance movements that he wants a regional war.
In denying any involvement or foreknowledge of the drone strike that killed Haniyeh, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken further damaged Washington’s battered credibility.
US security officials were briefing journalists within an hour of the attack taking place that a senior member of the Axis of Resistance had been killed. They did not specify where or whom, and at first it was thought to be a second strike in Lebanon after the targeting of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and right-hand man to leader Hassan Nasrallah.
But it is certain that US security officials knew about the drone strike on Haniyeh within minutes of it happening. To cast Netanyahu as a leader in the grip of Jewish messianic fascists in ordering this strike, is only half of the story.
When I met him two decades ago as a political outcast dubbed an extremist by my liberal Zionist hosts, Netanyahu had only one idea to impart: Iran was the mothership. Hamas and Hezbollah were only its aircraft carriers.
Netanyahu’s lifelong belief that he will lead his nation to victory by crushing the Palestinian national cause and preventing a state from ever seeing the light of day can never be discounted.
Today, he might think he is on the cusp of his ultimate political achievement as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, by dragging the U.S. and Britain into war with Iran.
Negotiations torn up
Netanyahu sent other messages, too, in killing Haniyeh, who had no involvement in the Hamas attack on 7 October, and whose bureau was in charge of negotiations with mediators Qatar and Egypt.
Netanyahu has torn up negotiations and any thought of getting the hostages back alive. This should already have been obvious from the latest round of talks in Rome, where the Israeli side multiplied its conditions around phase one of the deal.
It was evident, too, from Netanyahu’s last visit to Rafah, where he vowed Israel would retain indefinite control of the Philadelphi corridor.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has asked how negotiations can proceed when Israel has killed its negotiating counterpart.
Even without a ceasefire, Haniyeh was worth more to Israel alive than dead
In fact, Haniyeh was one member of a negotiating committee, which will carry on without him.
Al Thani’s barbed reaction was aimed at Netanyahu, who has done everything in his power to escalate regional tensions and to undermine the US administration’s position on a permanent ceasefire, and its consistent opposition to opening a second front in Lebanon.
In killing a mild man like Haniyeh, who did not hide underground but lived out in the open, and who dedicated his career to negotiations and engagement with the Islamic world in Qatar, Turkey and Iran, Israel has killed a leader it could one day need to negotiate a hudna, or long-term ceasefire.
Out of the equation
In person, Haniyeh was amiable, mild-mannered, an attentive listener, modest—the complete diplomat. He was never one to speak ill of Fatah or Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
If, as now must be obvious even to the Israeli military, it will not be able to defeat or disable Hamas in Gaza, Israel will need people in Hamas to negotiate with. They have just killed one of them.
From a strategic point of view, Israel’s action is madness. This is not my word, but that used by former Israeli General Amiram Levin, who added, with some understatement, that the “security forces should’ve strongly opposed” the move.
Even without a ceasefire, Haniyeh was worth more to Israel alive than dead.
Israel could have plausibly argued to a western audience that it would not surrender Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to the International Criminal Court in The Hague while another of those named in the ICC’s application for arrest warrants, Haniyeh, was free to live in Qatar and roam around the region.
Pressure would have inevitably been applied on Qatar to surrender him and expel the political bureau of Hamas.
Now that he is out of the equation, Israel has lost that defence. All this, Israel has achieved in killing Haniyeh.
Hamas strengthened
What Netanyahu can be sure he has not done is weaken Hamas.
Quite the contrary. Haniyeh, a modest man who lost 60 members of his family, including sons and grandsons, to Israel in this war, will go down as one of Hamas’ greatest martyrs.
The moment Haniyeh learned that his sons and grandsons had been killed in cars struck by Israeli forces during Eid, he was visiting a hospital in Doha where injured Palestinians from Gaza were being treated.
He said only: “May God have mercy on them,” but he refused to interrupt his visit. The clip went viral, because it spoke more than words could have done about his ability to put the Palestinian cause above his personal grief as a father.
Israel has killed countless Hamas leaders and commanders, and the movement has only grown - in recruits, weaponry and political influence. Today, polls show that Hamas would win in the West Bank if free elections were allowed to take place there.
The Hamas that has resisted Israel’s attack on Gaza for 10 months is many times the size and capabilities of the Hamas in the days of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The quadriplegic founder of Hamas was killed when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at him as he was being wheeled from Fajr prayers in Gaza. Haniyeh was his chief of staff. That assassination was internationally condemned.
The Israeli military knows the truth: that killing Haniyeh was last thing they should be doing if they want to see any of their hostages back alive
Hamas’ stock has risen, not fallen, in Palestine and the Arab and Muslim world since the 7 October attack. This is the only reason why the 88-year-old Abbas, who has continuously torn up reconciliation agreements, paid homage on Wednesday to his slain rival.
Abbas condemned the killing as “a cowardly act and a dangerous development”, and called on Palestinians to unite. Abbas spoke out of fear and political necessity, not out of any love for Hamas.
Within days of a reconciliation agreement among Palestinian factions negotiated in Beijing, Abbas’ security forces tried and failed to arrest an injured commander of the Tulkarm Battalion from a hospital in the occupied West Bank.
So you can be absolutely sure that Abbas has no intention of unifying Fatah with the other Palestinian factions. Fatah’s negotiator in Beijing might have been sincere, but for Abbas, Beijing was for show only. It made no difference on the ground in the occupied West Bank.
Fire in the region, fire at home
Nor is it a coincidence that Haniyeh’s assassination was ordered within a day of Israeli fascists and far-right members of the Knesset breaking into a detention facility in an attempt to prevent soldiers from being arrested for raping a Palestinian prisoner.
Setting fire to the region is Netanyahu’s only response to the bushfire that is breaking out at home and on his doorstep.
Hundreds of detainees have emerged with harrowing accounts of the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre. Middle East Eye first reported on how iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns were used in torturing Palestinian detainees at Israeli detention centres.
Omar Mahmoud Abdel Qader Samoud, who was detained for more than 42 days, said one of the rooms in the facility was known as the “disco”.
“A soldier dragged me on the floor, naked and handcuffed, and placed me on a piece of rug,” Samoud told MEE. “The soldiers sprayed freezing cold water on me and placed a fan in front of me. They would leave me for a few days, without food or water or the possibility to get up and go to the bathroom. I urinated on myself and pleaded for mercy but they didn’t care.
“The soldiers would kick me on all parts of my body,” he added. “Imagine yourself naked, handcuffed on the floor with five or six soldiers kicking you with their boots, hitting you with weapons and bats. Then they asked me to sit up. How could I possibly sit up? When I couldn’t follow their orders they would beat me even harder. They completely smashed me. I thought this nightmare would never end.”
A month later, an anonymous doctor working at the same centre said limbs were amputated because of handcuff injuries, noting: “We are all complicit in breaking the law.”
No one was detained; nothing was investigated. But as pressure mounted from the ICC about war crimes in Gaza, alongside the ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israeli military prosecutors felt obliged to act.
Israel could not argue that a domestic judicial process existed to examine such allegations of torture during detention, if the state did not use it. So nine soldiers accused of sexual abuse against a detainee, which led to him being hospitalised with serious injuries to his rectum, were arrested.
Breakdown of the state
What happened next was a complete breakdown of the state, similar to the 2021 assault on Congress by Trump supporters.
The arrests were met by angry demonstrations at the gates of Sde Teiman, with several protesters temporarily breaching the gates. Among the protesters were reservist soldiers, as well as two far-right parliamentarians: Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Religious Zionist movement, and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the Jewish Power party.
Police took three hours to arrive. Herzi Halevi, the army’s chief of general staff, had to break off a defence meeting on Israel’s response to the recent attack on the Golan Heights to deal with the crisis. The army and police each blamed each other for the breakdown in law and order.
For a time, the accused soldiers barricaded themselves into Sde Teiman and used pepper spray to defend themselves against arrest, before eventually being taken into custody.
When Hezbollah threatens to close Ben Gurion Airport, or knock out the Israeli electrical grid, these are not empty threats
It is a mistake often made by those who style themselves as friends of Israel to cast such scenes as a fight between moderates and the extreme messianic right. This is wholly illusory, for the “moderates” are fully on board with continuing the murderous Gaza campaign. The “moderates” voted for the recent Knesset bill that rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Where they differ is means, rather than ends.
Israelis who cling to their western identity are past masters of seizing Palestinian land in salami slices - subtly, quietly, without great fuss; but patiently, one property, one street, one high court case at a time. They care about their image, about being called global pariahs, and about the label of apartheid or war crimes being pinned on them personally.
The religious Zionist right, on the other hand, don’t give a tinker’s cuss about world opinion or international courts. They want annexation of the West Bank now. The sooner it happens, the better.
Call it two-speed Zionism, but the goal is the same: a one-state solution in which the modern state of Israel dominates, if not overlays, the biblical Land of Israel, the land from the river to the sea.
Deepening fractures
But it is a mistake, too, to underplay the ever-deepening fractures within Israel, which are occurring in the middle of a major war.
Israel portrays itself to the outside world as the one functioning state in a neighbourhood of failed ones. You don’t have to build a state in Israel, Netanyahu once bragged to US politicians in one of his many appearances before Congress: “We’re already built.”
But that state is showing distinct signs of failing, too.
Napoleon and Hitler were at the height of their powers, and their respective armies had tamed Europe under their jackboots, when each dictator thought it would be a good idea to attack Russia.
So, too, is Netanyahu endangering everything Israel has achieved in establishing a strong state by openly creating the conditions for a regional war.
The Israeli military knows the truth: that killing Haniyeh was the last thing they should be doing if they want to see any of their hostages back alive. They know they are not ready to attack southern Lebanon, because they don’t have enough tanks or ammunition.
They know how well-armed Hezbollah, the Houthis and other resistance groups are, and how effective their rockets are. They know about geography and distances, and the vulnerability of Israel’s population and economy to war on five fronts simultaneously. When Hezbollah threatens to close Ben Gurion Airport, or knock out the Israeli electrical grid, these are not empty threats.
Israeli security establishments also know they are in danger of losing command and control over their troops, and if they give the order to withdraw, many units may not obey.
Israel under Netanyahu’s leadership is making the classic mistake of all colonial powers. It is overreaching in the messianic belief that the Jews really are God’s chosen people; that the Bible ordained all of what is happening now, and that Israel can achieve its goal of complete military victory.
It is precisely at this moment that it is at its most vulnerable, and that the project could collapse.
In the final years of apartheid, the South African regime went into hyperdrive. It decided to overthrow the government of Angola, install a puppet regime in Namibia, and attack Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia—all fruitless projects that could not stave off regime collapse. Netanyahu’s Israel is treading the same path.
For nothing other than self-preservation, those who understand this should act before Netanyahu involves them in a war they could not possibly stop, still less win.
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Israel's New Assassination Campaign Could Set Middle East Further Aflame
The likelihood of an expanding regional war is now exponentially higher—with the danger of a much more direct conflict between Israel and Iran, and the possibility of even greater direct U.S. involvement.
Jul 31, 2024
A new assassination campaign aimed at Israel’s opponents has erupted across the Middle East, imperiling already shaky Gaza ceasefire talks and threatening an even greater regional expansion of war. While Israel continues its genocidal attack on desperate Gazans, killing scores, perhaps hundreds just in the last several days, the latest moves were clearly designed to escalate Israel’s war in Gaza and expand the military tensions already simmering on its border with Lebanon, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere into a full-scale war, potentially drawing in both Iran and the United States even more directly.
The lethal attacks on top military and political officials of Hezbollah and Hamas, in Beirut and Tehran respectively within 24 hours, demonstrates the centrality of assassination—and the irrelevance of diplomacy—in Tel Aviv’s strategic calculus.
Tuesday evening in the Lebanese capital, an Israeli airstrike hit the neighborhood of Dahiyeh, destroying a residential building very close to a major hospital, killing and injuring still-unconfirmed numbers of people. Israel claimed it killed Fuad Shukr, a top military official of Hezbollah, and a close adviser to Hassan Nasrallah, head of the political-military resistance organization in Lebanon. While Hezbollah has not confirmed Shukr’s death, it is clear that his assassination was the Israeli intent.
All the talk about Washington and Tel Aviv supporting a ceasefire or wanting the hostages returned means little when a top negotiator on the other side can be assassinated with impunity.
Just hours before that Israeli strike, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that U.S. officials “do not believe that all-out war is inevitable and we still believe that it can be avoided.” That followed his statement that “our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah, and we are working on a diplomatic solution.”
But the U.S. has made clear by its actions—regardless of some politicians’ rhetorical support for ending the war—that it is not prepared to do the one thing that would result in a permanent ceasefire: stop sending Israel the weapons that enable the war in Gaza.
To the contrary, the possibility of a diplomatic solution was grievously undermined again just hours after the Beirut attack when another airstrike, widely assumed to be Israeli, assassinated the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in a guest house in Tehran. He was visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of just-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Haniyeh, who had briefly served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections that were initially welcomed by the United States, lived in exile in Qatar. In recent months he played a key role in the Qatar-sponsored and U.S.-backed Israeli-Hamas negotiations aimed at ending Israel’s assault on Gaza, ensuring access to humanitarian aid, and releasing illegally held Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages.
All the talk about Washington and Tel Aviv supporting a ceasefire or wanting the hostages returned means little when a top negotiator on the other side can be assassinated with impunity. Haniyeh was widely recognized as pragmatic and supportive of negotiations; in 2006, just three months after Hamas won the Palestinian election in both Gaza and the West Bank, Haniyeh wrote to then-President George W. Bush urging negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas, and offering acceptance of a two-state solution and a long-term truce with Israel. The current situation, he wrote, “will encourage violence and chaos in the whole region.” Bush never responded.
The negotiations the Hamas leader was participating in will almost certainly be stalled, if not derailed entirely, as a result of Haniyeh’s killing. The resulting continuation of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza matches the goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted ceasefire efforts and pledged to keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed.
The likelihood of an expanding regional war is now exponentially higher—with the danger of a much more direct conflict between Israel and Iran, and the possibility of even greater direct U.S. involvement. The assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran was a deliberate provocation, aimed at forcing an Iranian reaction. Any government whose intelligence assets were powerful enough to know exactly where the Hamas leader was staying during a temporary visit to the Iranian capital would have known where he lived in Qatar, where an assassination, while of course still illegal, would not have had the same consequences.
The likelihood of an expanding regional war is now exponentially higher—with the danger of a much more direct conflict between Israel and Iran, and the possibility of even greater direct U.S. involvement.
Forcing Iran’s hand, particularly at the highly symbolic moment of the inauguration, will severely limit the options for the new president, who has called for renewed negotiations with the United States on nuclear issues and signaled the possibility of reopening the Iran nuclear deal. Preventing that would match Netanyahu’s longstanding goal of undermining any hint of a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement and bringing the United States directly into a potential Israeli-Iranian war.
While details on the exact nature of the missiles or other kind of projectiles used in the two assassinations have not yet been made public, it is likely that one or both were U.S.-produced and/or U.S.-funded. In that circumstance, the U.S. complicity in genocide by providing the weapons Israel is using in Gaza, could expand to direct U.S. involvement in what could escalate into a major regional war—exactly the war that U.S. officials claim they are trying to prevent.
The work of the movement for a permanent ceasefire—a ceasefire that includes an end to the killing, the resumption of humanitarian assistance and funding of UNRWA, and an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel—is about to get a whole lot harder, and a whole lot more urgent.
This piece was co-published with Foreign Policy in Focus.
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Iranian American Group Says Biden Must Change Course to Avert 'Bloody Regional War'
The U.S. must "make clear that a regional war is unacceptable and that military assistance to Israel will be leveraged to secure an end to the conflict," said the president of the National Iranian American Council.
Jul 31, 2024
A U.S.-based organization that represents Iranian Americans said Wednesday was among those urging the Biden administration to end its "feckless approach" toward Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and urgently work to prevent an all-out regional war following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The assassination, widely assumed to have been carried out by the Israeli military early Wednesday morning, "killed immediate hopes of ending this war before it spirals into a regional conflagration that pulls in the United States," Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement.
"Hamas has engaged in many clear and disturbing violations of international law, including in the October 7th attacks, but the assassination of one of its prominent leaders and cease-fire negotiators in Iran's capital is a highly provocative act that tips the scales further in the direction of a bloody regional war," Abdi continued. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, fresh off dissonant applause in the U.S. Congress, must have felt a green light to engage in further reckless attacks to extend the war—and extend his own political career that is widely believed will end if and when the war does."
Abdi called on the Biden administration—which has backed Israel's war on Gaza with diplomatic support and weaponry—to finally use its leverage to force the Israeli government to accept a cease-fire deal before the volatile situation descends into a full-blown military conflict potentially involving the U.S., Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other actors.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Abdi argued, must "make clear that a regional war is unacceptable and that military assistance to Israel will be leveraged to secure an end to the conflict."
The suspected Israeli killing of Haniyeh came hours after Israel launched an attack on the Lebanese capital of Beirut,
killing a senior Hezbollah commander and amplifying fears of a wider war.
Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, pledged "harsh punishment" for Israel in the wake of Haniyeh's assassination, which could further enflame tensions between the U.S. and Iran, whose newly elected president was sworn in on Tuesday. It's possible that Iran could retaliate against Israel in concert with Hezbollah and other allies in the region.
Told @BeckyCNN assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran carries multiple messages:
- Netanyahu seeks to prolong Gaza war by sabotaging ceasefire talks
- Parallel Israeli aim to thwart any prospect for Iran-west dialogue under Pezeshkian
- Retaliation likely to include members of Axis pic.twitter.com/CM4ifD250H
— Mohammad Ali Shabani (@mashabani) July 31, 2024
While U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinkensaid Wednesday that the Biden administration was "not aware of or involved in" Haniyeh's assassination, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that the killing "could not have occurred without the authorization and intelligence support of the U.S."
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent right to self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, to respond decisively and promptly," the letter added.
Axios reported Wednesday that, internally, the Biden administration is "very concerned" that Haniyeh's assassination "could derail negotiations over the Gaza hostage and cease-fire deal and increase the risk of a regional war"—a concern that Middle East leaders also expressed.
But the Biden administration has been warned repeatedly that its continued support for Israel's assault on Gaza has dramatically increased the likelihood of a broader regional war but has refused to cut off the flow of weapons.
In a televised address Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to "exact a heavy price from any aggression against us on any front," but did not specifically mention the assassination of Haniyeh.
Phyllis Bennis, a fellow of the U.S.-based Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Wednesday that "the U.S. has made clear by its actions—regardless of some politicians' rhetorical support for ending the war—that it is not prepared to do the one thing that would result in a permanent cease-fire: stop sending Israel the weapons that enable the war in Gaza."
"All the talk about Washington and Tel Aviv supporting a cease-fire or wanting the hostages returned means little when a top negotiator on the other side can be assassinated with impunity," Bennis continued. "The negotiations the Hamas leader was participating in will almost certainly be stalled, if not derailed entirely, as a result of Haniyeh’s killing. The resulting continuation of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza matches the goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted cease-fire efforts and pledged to keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed."
"The likelihood of an expanding regional war is now exponentially higher," Bennis added, "with the danger of a much more direct conflict between Israel and Iran, and the possibility of even greater direct U.S. involvement."
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Israel's Assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran an Effort to Goad Iran Into War
Since Iran has not shown any inclination towards starting a direct war with Israel, the next best scenario for Israel is to trap it in an untenable position. That's exactly what the killing of Hamas' political leader was intended to do.
Jul 31, 2024
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran, widely believed by Israel. He was in Tehran to attend the ceremonies marking inauguration of Iran’s new President, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian. The two men met before Haniyeh was killed.
As of this writing, Israel has not commented on the killing or the allegations that it was behind it.
In assassinating Haniyeh, Israel would have struck at two targets, not one. The second one is the new Pezeshkian administration. On the day the reformist President was taking office, a foreign leader and an ally of Iran is assassinated, and as the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, he must address a security crisis with international dimensions and implications.
If Saeed Jalili, Pezeshkian’s opponent in the second round of Iran’s presidential elections, had won, given his radical and extremist positions, and his bombastic style, it would have helped Israel in its attempts to convince the international community that engaging Iran diplomatically will not be fruitful, and the country must be put under maximum pressure.
But Pezeshkian is a moderate, and although he has repeatedly condemned the United States for its support of Israel in its war in Gaza, for imposing harsh economic sanctions on Iran, and exiting the nuclear treaty with Iran known officially as JCPOA, he is also pragmatic in seeking a dialogue with the U.S. During his campaign, Pezeshkian stated repeatedly that he would pursue negotiations with the United States, a position apparently supported by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in order to get the economic sanctions lifted.
Dialogue between Iran and the United States is, however, the last thing that Israel, and particularly Benjamin Netanyahu, wants at this stage. If anything, Netanyahu would expand the war to Lebanon in hopes that Iran will react strongly and enter the war directly. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran wants a war with Israel at this stage, but no one should be under the illusion that if Israel begins a full-scale war with Lebanon and Hezbollah, Iran will sit it out.
Unlike Hamas, a Sunni group that has had differences with Iran over the past twenty years, particularly when it refused to support Bashar al-Assad in Syria during the war there that angered Tehran, Hezbollah is a Shiite organization and Iran’s most important asset in the Middle East. If Israel starts waging a full-scale war against Lebanon, and the Islamic Republic does not intervene to defend Hezbollah, it will lose all credibility with its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran has already been criticized by the Houthis in Yemen for not defending Hamas in Gaza.
Since Iran has not shown any inclination towards starting a direct war with Israel, the next best scenario for Israel is to trap it in an untenable position. Assassinating the leader of an ally, particularly in Tehran in the evening of the day in which a new administration took the oath of office, is that trap. It has put President Pezeshkian and his allies in an extremely difficult situation.
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Netanyahu Accused of Sabotaging Cease-Fire Talks With Assassination of Hamas Leader
"Netanyahu isn't playing chicken, he wants to crash the car," said one observer.
Jul 31, 2024
The political leader of Hamas was assassinated early Wednesday in what the group said was an Israeli attack on his residence in the Iranian capital of Tehran, which he was visiting to attend the inauguration of the country's newly elected president.
The killing of Ismail Haniyeh, who became the head of Hamas' political arm in 2017, sparked warnings that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing all he can to undermine cease-fire talks with the Palestinian group after they showed signs of progress in recent weeks.
"Netanyahu has systematically sabotaged cease-fire talks because ending the war will likely end his political career," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said following the assassination of Haniyeh, a key figure in the negotiations.
"The assassination buys Netanyahu several weeks, if not months, in which there will be no serious expectation of a cease-fire deal," Parsi argued. "Thus, the war will continue, as will Netanyahu's reign as prime minister."
Haniyeh's killing prompted fury from Iran, whose supreme leader vowed a "harsh response"—heightening the chances of a long-feared all-out war between Israel and Iran. Earlier this year, Israel killed several Iranian commanders in a strike on Tehran's consulate in Syria's capital, prompting Iran to retaliate with a drone attack.
Iranian lawmakers are expected to hold an emergency meeting about Haniyeh's assassination later Wednesday. As of this writing, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has yet to comment on the killing.
The International Criminal Court's (ICC) top prosecutor, Karim Khan, was seeking an arrest warrant against Haniyeh for war crimes committed on October 7. Khan has also applied for an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
"How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?"
The suspected Israeli strike in Tehran on Wednesday was launched just hours after Israel's military bombed the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing several people—including two children—in retaliation for a deadly attack on the occupied Golan Heights. Israel claimed its attack on Beirut killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur, but subsequent reporting suggested he may have survived the strike.
News of Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran came days after top officials from Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and the United States met in Rome over the weekend to continue negotiating a possible deal to end Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
The New York Times reported that "despite progress in recent weeks, the monthslong negotiations remain stalled over several critical issues, particularly the extent to which Israeli forces would remain in Gaza during a truce."
"Earlier in July, Israel hardened its position on maintaining checkpoints along a strategic highway south of Gaza City, weeks after suggesting that it could compromise," the Times added. "It was unclear on Sunday if Mr. Netanyahu had allowed negotiators to show greater flexibility on the matter during the talks. Mr. Netanyahu faces pressure from members of his right-wing government to stick to a tougher line. The length of the truce is also a source of dispute: Hamas wants a permanent truce, while Israel wants the option to resume fighting."
Egypt said Haniyeh's killing is a signal from Israel that it lacks "political will for deescalation," according to Al Jazeera.
Qatar's prime minister, meanwhile, wrote on social media: "Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?"
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, warned that with the assassination of Haniyeh, "Netanyahu isn't playing chicken, he wants to crash the car."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the United States was "not aware of or involved in" the assassination of Haniyeh.
Belén Fernández, a contributing editor at Jacobin, wrote in an op-ed for Al Jazeera that "Israel made its intention to continue and expand the war clear" by killing Haniyeh.
"By assassinating Haniyeh in Tehran, Israel is literally playing with fire," Fernández wrote. "In order to derail cease-fire prospects and keep up the killing in Gaza, then, it seems Israel is going to end up with a whole lot more regional blood on its hands."
This story has been updated to include new comment from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal Reportedly in 'Final Stages'
The leader of Hamas and Israel's prime minister both confirmed progress on a potential agreement to pause fighting and release hostages.
Nov 21, 2023
This is a developing story... Check back for possible updates...
Israel and Hamas are reportedly on the verge of a deal that would involve the release of hostages and a pause in bombing that has killed more than 13,000 people in Gaza and intensified the strip's humanitarian crisis.
An unnamed source briefed on the talks told Reuters on Tuesday that negotiations are in the "final stages" and a deal is "closer than it has ever been" since October 7, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people.
The Qatar-mediated deal, according to Reuters, "envisages the release of around 50 civilian hostages by Hamas and of female and minor-aged Palestinian detainees from Israeli custody, as well as a multi-day pause in fighting."
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirmed Tuesday that a "deal on a truce" with Israel is "close." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "we are making progress" on a hostage agreement and hopes "there will be good news soon."
Netanyahu rejected a similar proposal earlier this month.
News of a potential deal comes after six weeks of Israeli bombing that has leveled much of the Gaza Strip, destroying homes and other civilian infrastructure, killing thousands of children, and displacing more than a million people. Additionally, Israel's siege has prevented adequate humanitarian aid from reaching desperate Gazans, leaving virtually the entire population at risk of starvation and forcing hospitals in the northern part of the strip to shut down.
A spokesperson for Gaza's Health Ministry told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the occupancy rate in northern Gaza's hospitals has reached 190%, overrun with victims of Israeli airstrikes.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said in a speech Tuesday that "the people of Gaza are not safe anywhere: not at home, not under the U.N. flag, not in a hospital, not in the north, and not in the south."
"More than 900,000 people are sheltering in UNRWA installations, including in the north," said Lazzarini. "The conditions in these shelters are indescribable. They are massively overcrowded and shockingly unsanitary. On average, 150 people share a single toilet and 700 people share a single shower when available. These are breeding grounds for despair and disease."
A negotiated multi-day pause could allow additional humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, but it's unlikely that will be enough to alleviate emergency conditions in the Gaza Strip.
"We need an immediate humanitarian cease-fire," Lazzarini said. "We need respect for international humanitarian law so civilians are protected, and humanitarian organizations can work unhindered. We need a meaningful supply of humanitarian aid and commercial goods flowing into Gaza. The siege must be lifted."
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